Headscratchers / Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade

No love for prissy Priscilla

• Priscilla has seven different support options: all of them with men, all of them occur faster than normal (most have one extremely slow option), and all of them are with early (read: good) characters. Is it just me, or is she...yeah.
  • Only four of those supports are romantic. The other three are there for backstory purposes.
    • Probably. We're still not sure about Raven.
    • Aren't we? I mean, this IS Fire Emblem...

Holy shit, a ghost!

• If you let Bartre die in Blazing Blade, the epilogue says that he survived—which makes sense as he appears again in Binding Blade. However, the same is not true of Karel, who also appears in Binding Blade, nor of Rebecca or Nino, both of whom are canonically the mothers of characters in Binding Blade and neither of which had been remotely sexually active beforehand.
  • That we know of.
    • Ewwwww.
    • What? And before you start with the accusations, that can easily be a case of Values Dissonance mixed in with a degree of Truth in Television and/or Shown Their Work. Back in the day - the time of William Shakespeare is a great example - people had a MUCH lower life expectancy than is enjoyed today, since we get the benefit of all those neat medicines, Crazy-Prepared hospitals, etc. So, in order to perpetuate the species, it was normal for women to bear children at earlier ages. In the original Romeo and Juliet, IIRC, Juliet was... what, fourteen - sometimes, even thirteen or TWELVE - according to most sources? Considering that the setting and general level of society/technology appears to be that timeframe Like Reality, Unless Noted, this makes a great deal more sense. In a matter of fact, in some Third World countries today, that (relative) social norm is still in effect.
    • Lugh and Ray were 14 in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, and Nino was 14 in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade. Binding took place 20 years after Blazing. Therefore, Nino was 20 years old when she gave birth to Lugh and Ray. She HAD to survive at least six years past Blazing.

Elfire is delicious

• Nino's supports with Canas have her learning to read from Canas' "tomes". This is despite the fact that she can already cast Elfire when you recruit her. In a world where spells are cast from spellbooks. Referred to as "tomes" in-game. What, does spellcasting normally work by ripping out a magical page and eating it or something? (I suppose that would explain the finite durability...) Also, while Nino has already learned from Sonia at this point that she's not her actual mother, in the support conversations she inexplicably possesses a pendant with pictures of her real family. Which she was ripped away from as an infant. Er? I guess that must be Uncle Jan's doing...
  • Nino's support with Erk answers the first question: she auditorily memorized the chants Sonia used to cast spells. Yeah, she's just that good. That doesn't explain why she needs the tomes, though.
  • The pendant is Uncle Jan's doing: he gives it to her at the end of Night of Farewells. The only thing that doesn't make sense is her having that pendant if you skipped the chapter.

Screw you, honey!

• Sain and Rebecca's support conversations consist entirely of Sain doing what he does and Rebecca rejecting him hard. Why, then, does their A-support ending have them get married?
  • Slap-Slap-Kiss? They didn't get married immediately after the game ended and things changed? Because she has to shack up with any dude she can to be Wolt's mother even though he looks exactly like Wil? Or maybe they just did it for the heck of it?

Is he hiding something?

• Someone keeps referencing Hector using an axe and potholing it to Not Compensating for Anything. What's up with that? Is the logic that he must be compensating because he uses a different weapon? Is it because his axe is huge after his class change? Because if it's the latter I'd really like to know how you can compulsively call that compensation while not batting an eye at Durandal.
  • Heroes Prefer Swords used to be called Not Compensating for Anything.

Stupid dress...

• How is Ninian able to run while wearing that dress? You'd think it would be a bit hard to stay away from a group like the Black Fang while wearing this.◊
  • Nils played his flute for her and she danced for him, thus cheesing their way to safety.
  • There's also the fact that they got caught. Twice.

Lived by continuity errors

• Renault possibly being centuries old was an interesting twist, if only it didn't completely screw with the Fire Emblem timeline. As Renault was a soldier when Wallace was a youth (who, despite being old, is not centuries old), and he only chose to aid Nergal and leave Caelin after his friend had died. Thus it is likely that Canas believed Nergal started creating the morphs assisted by Renault several centuries ago, when in fact it may have just been a few decades. Another possibility is that after leaving Nergal, he returned to Caelin and became a knight for a while before becoming a Bishop, though it is unlikely as he is said to have killed Lucius's parents when Lucius was a child during his blood-crazed state after his friend's death.

Fire Emblem 7's subtitle

• Why is the most common fan translation for Fire Emblem 7's subtitle "Blazing Sword" instead of "Blazing Blade"? I can understand, with the lack of an official translation, how people might end up translating the same word differently, but "Blazing Blade" is actually used several times in English version of the game when referring to Durandal. It's the closest thing to an official translation of the subtitle, so why does everyone ignore it?
  • Inconsistent Translation is the only thing I can think of.
  • Because FE6 is translated as "The Binding Blade." Having two titles so similar to each other can lead to people preferring a slightly different translation to make them more distinct from each other.
    • Except that the translation of "rekka no ken" as "the blazing blade" dates back to November 2003 when FE7 came out; the translation of "Fuuin no Tsurugi" as "The Binding Blade" dates back to March 2008 when Super Smash Bros: Brawl came out, about four years later.

They probably have a great pension plan.

• How and why does the Black Fang, a league of assassins, have enough soldiers to field an entire army? Cog of Destiny alone had hordes and hordes of heavily armed and armoured soldiers, and it seems to be the case that most of Nergal's non-Morph henchmen you fight are Black Fang members. Wouldn't an assassin's guild only have a handful of actual assassins, and maybe a few guards and soldiers for support other duties? Having hundreds of soldiers doesn't strike me as good sense for what's supposed to be a secret guild.
  • They don't appear to me as the purely stealthy type of assassin. More like the "rush into the evil noble's house through the front door, beat down his guards and then put an axe in his head" type. They'd need more people for that and they also would be able to recruit from a wider scale without having to train them all in the arts of stealth. It's also plausible that they started recruiting whatever thugs, mercenaries, rogues and who-knows-who as soon as Sonia became involved to fill out their ranks for just such an occasion. After all, the more death, the more Quintessence.
  • I think Nergal was filling out their ranks with his morphs.

Darin and Hausen's titles

• Darin, Helman and Hausen are titled Marquess, but Laus and Santaruz are in the dead center of Lycia and Caelin is sorounded by other Lycian teritories. They should be Counts (Ostia and Pherae are on the borders, so Hector/Uther and Eliwood/Elbert are correctly titled).
  • This isn't earth. The naming conventions for nobility may be similar, but they mean different things. As well, it seems that while each league in Lycia is different in economic and military power and standing, they at least give the pretense of aiming for equality, so every noble ruler has the same title.
  • Also, keep in mind that titles like "marquess" can end up as linguistic artifacts. They may have originated as lords guarding borders, but kept their titles after more territories joined the League and expanded it beyond said borders. Or the component territories might have all agreed to give everyone the same title so that they all feel like equals, and since no nobleman wanted to be demoted, they started calling the counts marquesses.

Special Snowflake Dragons

• Ninian, Nils and Sophia are all half-breed dragons, and yet they function so differently. It's implied that Ninian and Nils could take a dragon form if they had their dragonstones, yet Sophia is just a Shaman. On the other hand, it's pretty much stated that Ninian's lifespan would be short if she stayed on Elibe in her human form, and yet Sophia didn't age a day in the twenty years between games, and it's heavily implied she's still got a few good centuries to go. And that's not even getting into all the silly and vaguely-defined powers Ninian has. What's up with all of this?
• It could be that Sophia was born on this side of the Gate, and thus is more adapted to the post-Ending Winter environment. Also, Ninian and Nils can take Dragon form because they have their Dragonstones. Sophia, to our knowledge at least, doesn't. As for vaguely defined powers, even Sophia has the ability to see minor ways into the future and heal with a touch.
  • Ninian and Nils were also born on the Elibe side of the Gate, though they spent the last thousand years on the other side. (There is a side quest that very strongly implies that Nergal is actually their father and was married to a dragon, Aenir, during the Scouring. Somehow, Aenir was separated from her family. Ninian and Nils are left by their father at their home on Dread Island and told to wait ten days while he goes to look for their mother. If he doesn't return before then, they should go through the Gate. Obviously, that's what they do.) Also, Ninian is specifically mentioned to be special, like an oracle of some sort. She's not just any dragon.
  • As mentioned, Sophia also has oracle powers. Ninian and Nils aren't completely unique in that regard. (It is possible that both Sophia and the siblings have special oracle powers coincidentally but that is neither here or there) And even if Ninian and Nils were born in Elibe, they spent their lives on the other side, and thus any adaptation they made to the post-Ending Winter environment wouldn't be nearly as strong as Sophia's, if they still have it at all. Think of it this way: You were born in a cold environment, but as a kid moved to a warm environment and grew up there. As an adult, you move back to the cold environment. Will you be adapted to live there because you lived there as a kid?
• Yahn survived for a 1000 years in post-Scouring Elibe by residing in a Dragon Temple. It's implied that such buildings have an eerie ambiance to them, probably magic that negates the effects of the Ending Winter. Moreover, the Dragon Temple's power was dependent on the life force of a Divine Dragon (Idenn). Chances are that Arcadia has buildings similar to the Dragon Temple. That plus a population of Divine Dragons means that Sophia could survive much longer in Elibe so long as she regularly returned to Arcadia. Ninian may have been able to do the same but it would be tantamount to crossing the Dragon's Gate since she stayed in Elibe to be with Eliwood.
• Another question is how Nils look like a kid when he is around the same age rage of Ninian, since their father is a mortal and their mother died when they were children. Maybe dragons can chose what age rage they look or they can chose to stop developing.

Necromancy is bad, except that one time

• Ninian being brought back to life at the end of FE7 always bothered me. This is a game where even gameplay doesn't allow bringing back the dead. Dead is Dead, that's it. Moreover, the next game in the series is all about how trying to revive the dead is A Bad Idea. But then Ninian gets revived out of nowhere and it's all hunky-dory. There's absolutely no explanation for it. There's no even vague foreshadowing. It's like they just threw it in there. And then, to add insult to injury, if you didn't pair her off with Eliwood, Ninian leaves, never to be heard from again. She doesn't even really do anything in the end! You still fight the dragon. Am I the only one who saw this as at least inconsistent if not a full on Broken Aesop?
  • Not necessarily. There's a difference between Brammimond (technically a Good Guy, only he's got no self) and Nergal or Lyon (the former weak and going mad with power, the latter weak-minded and easily corrupted). Brammimond is said to be VERY powerful in the arcane magics, so it's possible he had some knowledge of how to revive the dead without them coming back wrong or at a cost to himself. He already has no more self to speak of, so what more could he lose?
• There's also the fact that previous games let you revive a dead unit with a one use staff. Bramimond didn't bring Ninian back to life for selfish reasons and it didn't kill thousands of people or release a primordial evil to do it.
• It only seems to be bad if the dead person doesn't have a consciousness, apparently. Or if it's a Phantom, which is basically a puppet/killing machine hybrid.

Having babies isn't THAT dangerous, even back then

• Why does everyone always assume Roy and Lilina's mothers died in childbirth? Or even that they're Definitely Dead by the epilogue? Ninian most certainly is, but there's still a chance Lyn or the pegasus sisters are alive offscreen. And even if they are long dead, childbirth isn't the only killer of women. Illness, perhaps, or a riding accident.
  • The reason everyone assumed was a fan translation lists Wolt as Roy's milk-brother, implying that Roy was not nursed by his mother.
  • Another reason that they are considered to be dead is that they don't appear in key moments of the story. Lyn, Fiora for sure would be with Roy in important moments and would even maybe enjoy the war to protect their son since they are warriors themselves. Farina, Florina and Lyn also would be there for Lilina when Hector is killed if they were alive, and possibly would be fighting with Hector until his death.
  • Maybe Roy's mother opted not to nurse due to a health issue or just not wanting to. Women hired wet nurses back then anyway, if they could afford to. It's quite common nobles and queens having wet nurses in medieval times.
  • On that note, it isn't that certain that Ninian, Fiora and Lyn are dead by Sword of Seals. The epilogue of Blazing Sword said that for example, Ninian enjoyed a brief life with Eliwood, but to somebody who has lived for more than a thousand years, twenty years could qualify as "brief."
  • Also a lot of people assume that Roy or Lilina's mother died in a point of Roy's childhood, not exactly in childbirth.

Durandal's size

In the opening of Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade we see all eight Legendary Heroes, including Roland and Hartmut with their respective swords. Roland, known well enough for his diminutive size to earn the moniker "Little Hero", nonetheless seems to wield Durandal quite comfortably.

So why is Durandal so big and unwieldy in Eliwood's hand? Eliwood isn't as big as Hector, but he's not particularly small either (as Roland was).

• Durandal's size and weight were never consistent: it went from a manageable 12 weight in FE6 to a monstrous 16 in FE7. Durandal also isn't nearly as powerful as it was in the past, so maybe it once had the ability to change sizes (say, if Roland needed the extra reach against a particular big dragon), but became unstable afterwards, resulting it it being too large for Eliwood, but shrinking in the twenty years afterwards in a belated effort to get to the right size for the last person to use it.

How old is Uther?

We get some seemingly contradictory information about Uther's age. On the one hand, he's old enough to have been Promoted to Parent after his and Hector's parents' death many years ago; on the other hand, he's young enough to have only recently become marquess of Ostia and head of the Lycian League. (And since Hector would later become marquess of Ostia and head of the Lycian League at age 18, it can be assumed that Uther also became marquess at age 18, if he wasn't already.)

But if Uther had already been marquess of Ostia for years, why did Hector and Oswin say that he had only ascended to the throne recently?

• It's possible that Uther being Promoted to Parent was long ago enough that he and Hector were still technically raised by tutors, etc. for a while.

Hair

• Rebecca can be in a relationship with Wil, Sain, or Lowen. Rebecca, Wil, and Sain all have brown hair. Rebecca's son, Wolt, has green hair like Lowen. However, the father doesn't have to be Lowen due to the creators wanting to keep all possibilities open. How is it that Wolt can have green hair if the father is Wil or Sain?
  • Rebecca's hair is green. Granted, Wolt's hair color is closer to Lowen's than Rebecca's, but Wolt getting green hair because of Rebecca isn't totally impossible. (We never see her Missing Mom, so for all that we know Wolt got his hair from his dead grandmother.)
  • Also, Wolt can be seen as a physical mixture of all of his potential fathers. He has Wil's hairstyle and fighting class (the latter shared with Rebecca), Lowen's hair color and personality, and Sain's eyes and features. (And he is specifically mentioned to not really be a lot like Sain anyway.)

Yelling

• In Four Fanged Offense, Nino takes refuge inside of a house and yells at you to go away even if you visit the place with Legault, someone that she has known fondly for years.
  • Maybe she stayed in another room and didn't look at who was coming in?